Well, you know Elwood, we liberals believe in that big tent, Plenty of room for fairies and unicorns too.

I stand by what I said about the economy. Housing seems to be making a bit of a comeback. That and getting through an extended period of people unwinding household debt have always been the keys for a meaningful recovery. Even then, we’re back to a pre-housing bubble economy that has been flat for more than a decade.

And, to repeat myself, what have Republicans proposed or advocated that would have made the recovery faster and more robust?

Considering that the global economy outside the U.S. is contracting, we’re lucky that the domestic economy is performing as well as it is. It would be lots worse without TARP, the stimulus and the auto bailout. What have Republicans proposed or advocated that would make the recovery faster and more robust? Oh, I know. Tax cuts!

Well, it did work. Money was repaid, and the U.S. just made $15 billion profit selling the shares in AIG that it took in exchange for the emergency infusion of capital.

At the time, George Bush stated, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” It was a Paulson/Bush deal, but it was the Dems who stepped up and took the heat for voting for TARP, after Paulson literally got on his knees and begged Pelosi. Bohener couldn’t get the votes on his side.

The financial system was in a total freeze-up. The banks couldn’t do their over-night lending to each other. Banks, in turn, couldn’t do the daily short-term lending that they provide to companies to buy inventory and meet payroll. GE was on the ropes because of its heavy dependence on this type of short-term financing. Money market funds were about to implode. We would have reached a point where you wouldn’t be able to get money from your ATM or redeem bonds. 401k’s and other retirement funds were in jeopardy. Good luck with your checking and savings accounts.

Then and now, it was estimated that, without TARP, we would hit peak-Great Depression unemployment of 25%. That would have been 20 million or so more unemployed than what we have currently.

It wasn’t pretty. More strings should have been attached. But the fear at the time was that, with too many strings, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo would refuse to participate in the re-capitalization of the banks, believing that they would be the survivors to pick up the pieces after all other banks went belly-up.

This was like Jerry Ford’s pardon of Nixon. Very unpopular but the right thing to do.

“Applications for unemployment benefits have shown little movement since early spring, suggesting a continuation of lackluster job creation. The U.S. has barely added enough jobs over the past six months to keep up with growth in the working-age population.”

Just saying that, for those of us who agreed with economists that failure to pass Paulson/Bush’s TARP would have resulted in a total collapse, McNerney/Pelosi/Obama did the right thing when everything was on the line. Taken at his word, Ricky would have done the wrong thing.

If you don’t agree with that view of what would have happened without TARP, then your take on McNerney/Pelosi/Obama is different.

]]>By: JohnWhttp://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2012/09/20/gill-wants-you-to-parse-mcnerneys-tarp-votes/comment-page-1/#comment-91628
JohnWThu, 20 Sep 2012 20:08:57 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/?p=20953#comment-91628Bottom line is that McNerney voted for TARP when it mattered, and Ricky says he would have voted against it. McNerney, Pelosi and Obama helped Paulson and Bush get it done. Ricky would have preferred a Great Depression.
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